And she said, “I should say not. I know how you look.
I've seen you on television, but you don't know how I look, and
that's the way it's going to stay.” She said, “You remember
me the way I looked in those days.”

I wheedled and cajoled but it was no soap. She said,
“Absolutely no. You just remember me the way I looked then.
I wish I looked that way now.”

Q:

Isn't that funny? You never know what's going to happen
in life, really. And now that we're talking about Paris, how
about talking about your adventures with Gertrude Stein?

Cerf:

When I first met Gertrude Stein she had already published
her “Alice B. Toklas.” Harcourt published it. We had done
a couple of limited editions for her, however. And Carl Van
Vechten, who was a friend of mine, had suggested that maybe
we would like to publish her; that she had written a lot of
things before Toklas, which was a pretty big best seller. It
was a curiosity best seller. We corresponded, and she gave
us a couple of things to publish, none of which made much sense
to me, but we published them in small editions. She came over
to America early in 1935.

Q:

Do you remember meeting her for the first time?

Cerf:

I'm trying to remember whether I met her in Paris before
she came over here or not. I can't remember. But I do remember